Lucky you. And what is gun violence like there compared that in the US?Originally Posted by IshbelRobertson
You don't have to answer. I already know.
Lucky you. And what is gun violence like there compared that in the US?
You don't have to answer. I already know.
"There are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw the line somewhere." --Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale
I agree that there is validity in the access argument. It's logical to assume there are a lot of illegal assault rifles out there that started their lives in a perfectly legal setting, but were stolen. I don't have any numbers for that regarding any specific weapon class, but there is no doubt it does happen. Would it even be constitutional to require purchasers of certain types of guns to also purchase a gun safe or some other way to guarantee criminals can't get to the guns?
Bushmaster is headquartered in the US, but one big problem with a ban is that most of the guns that get all the press aren't made here. They're predominantly from Eastern Europe. A ban here would stop formerly legal shipments and purchases, but would also strengthen the black market. The Mexican cartels and the gangs in the US who work for them won't be too worried about the new laws because their guns are already illegal. All they would have to do to get more would be put in a call to Romania. A ban won’t slow that down.
"Back when I was a young boy all my aunts and uncles would poke me in the ribs at weddings saying your next! Your next! They stopped doing all that crap when I started doing it to them... at funerals!"
Most of the guns used in these mass shootings were legally obtained. This particular guy who murdered the firefighters did not steal his, but purchased it from an individual who did purchase it legally. Only one that I know of (the Portland mall shooter) stole or borrowed his from an acquaintance. If these weapons were still banned, they would not have been able to so easily obtain their weapons, stolen or otherwise.
The are tactical weapons of war that only belong in the hands of the military or law enforcement. Nobody will ever convince me otherwise.
"There are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw the line somewhere." --Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale
Spengler, as a felon, was forbidden firearms ownership, and could not legally purchase a firearm.
The purchaser of the rifle he used, Dawn Nguyen, committed multiple federal and state crimes in her straw-man purchase and conveyance of the firearm to Spengler, and has been charged.
Weird, criminals don't follow laws... Who would have guessed?
BTW, I am impressed above that you somehow deduced the manufacturer of the firearm used from the initial news reports, given that there are hundreds of manufacturers of AR-15 rifles here in the USA, where the AR has been the top-selling platform for years now. I spent some time working with Col. Dr. Martin Fackler at the Army's Wound Ballistics Lab at the Letterman Institute, and it was often quite difficult to determine the projectile used to produce a given wound, much less what firearm launched the projectile, and that was with the evidence sitting on the table right in front of you. My hat is off to your psychic powers!
And there's the rub. It's that pesky gun show, or 'private sale' loophole that enables something like 40% of gun sales to go unregistered, without necessary background checks. If gun control laws were standard, across the board and states, and every sale required registration, it may not totally prevent gun violence like this, but it would make it more difficult. Especially for the neighborhood gang banger who gets his gun from a friend of a friend of a friend. Trace that gun used in a crime back to the last legal owner and this is the guy to go after, along with the perp, if caught. If your gun is stolen, file a report, so if that gun is used in a crime, you are absolved of responsibility. Seems pretty simple to me. No one has to give up their guns. They just have to register every one of them, and record it when they are sold or stolen.
And this 'gun is just a tool' argument is getting pretty tiresome. Yes, a hammer is a tool, but a hammer is not designed to beat up grandmas. A spoon is a tool, but it is not designed to make you fat. A car is a tool, but it is not designed to wreck.
A gun is a weapon with one design. To kill, period. That is it's purpose.
A 1/4 inch drill bit is a tool, but if it was found that 40,000 deaths a year were caused by this tool, you bet your butt it would be banned. 3 kids choke on small parts and a toy is banned!
so trying to reduce a gun to merely a harmless 'tool' is lame, at best.
The gun pushers keep talking in circles. A gun is just a tool....guns don't kill, people do....etc...OK, well, then gun control laws are for PEOPLE. A gun, er, tool, can't drive itself to the courthouse and register itself, but the 'tool' who bought it can. The laws are for PEOPLE who want guns. Close the gun show/private sale loophole where PEOPLE are involved, and you can make it more difficult for the bad guys to get the guns.
My apologies. I didn't mean make and model. I meant type. As in military type assault rifle capable of using large clips of ammo, not a particular brand of assault weapon from a particular manufacturer.
I'm smart, but not that smart.
"There are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw the line somewhere." --Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale
Yes, there have been mass shootings with legally obtained guns. Nothing in life comes with 100% guarantees. As bae and I both pointed out there are multiple layers of laws already on the books making it illegal for Spengler, the NY shooter, to purchase or own guns. Any additional layers of law would have changed nothing.
Adam Lanza, the Newtown shooter, also used illegally obtained guns in his crime. Prior to Newtown there have been 58 mass shootings in the US since 1982. The shooters carried a total of 134 guns. More than 75% of them were illegal. Do the other 25% mean we have a problem? You bet, but we're crazy to think that legally obtained guns that are already strictly regulated are the real problem. And the mass shootings are horrific, but in 2012 Chicago alone had 20 murders for every person who died in Newtown. Take a wild stab at which demographic was inordinately affected? Yup, young black and Hispanic men who were most often gunned down in association with gang activity (whether they were in gangs or not). I'm not sure how many of those gang bangers went to the sporting goods store in the mall, filled out their Form 4473, passed the background check and came back a few days later for their gun. My guess is the percentage is low. Any law, no matter how restrictive, will do nothing to keep guns out of the hands of people who care nothing about the law. Coincidentally, that is also the group that does the most shooting!
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"Back when I was a young boy all my aunts and uncles would poke me in the ribs at weddings saying your next! Your next! They stopped doing all that crap when I started doing it to them... at funerals!"
As far as the "tool" argument goes, so are explosives - and they are heavily regulated. Why is that?
I have to think the easiest way to smuggle *real* assault weapons into the USA would be to conceal them inside bales of cocaine, because nobody ever thinks to look there.
Or you could make them *legally* in your own shop. I made a Sterling submachinegun about 2 years ago, a classic British weapon from WWII. It took me a good part of a weekend, because it was the first one I'd made, and I was making it to be semi-automatic and fire from a closed bolt, not selective-fire, which took a little more work. If I were not interested in complying with the law, it would have been simpler by far to make the more historically-accurate *real* submachinegun. And I bet I could set up a shop to churn these puppies out for a production cost of < $150 or so.
If I were An Evil Criminal Type, I'd surely have some of my minions doing something similar, except for the fact that it is nearly impossible to compete with the former Soviet-bloc nations on production costs, and they have warehouses full of *real* AK47s and AK74s to unload. They'd probably throw in a crate of RPGs if you buy in volume. I can never find RPGs at gun shows for some reason...
I think the thing about this entire conversation that I find so dispiriting is that the people in favor of the status quo are so certain that no solution will have any impact in reducing these senseless deaths that they continually argue that there's no point in even bothering to try and find a solution to this problem. And by extension since it's unsolvable no problem even exists.
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